Socialist Party in France Demands Speedier Restoration of Property to Jews

A demand for immediate government action to redress the wrongs committed under the Vichy racial legislation, by restoring property to the former Jewish owners and suppressing racialist propaganda conducted by the benefiarias of the despoliation, was published today in Le Populaire, official organ of the French Socialist Party. The demand is considered to represent the position of the party.

“Victims of the racial laws,” the article points out, “are still suffering which is a scandal in itself – from the spoliation of which they have been the object. Are they going to be allowed to be additionally injured and threatened by the profiteers of this spoliation? The government has a word to say and we await it.”

The paper charged two organizations – “The National Inter-Corporative Association of Commerce. Industry and Artisanship” which was formed to protect the interests of those who acquired Jewish property under the Vichy regime, and the “Association of Administrators of France” which was established to defend those appointed by the Vichy government to administer seized Jewish property – with attempting to block the restoration of property to the rightful owners. It accused them of maintaining a clandestine press and with publishing tracts and circulars containing “all the most authentic slogans of Hitlerism.”